Summer Dinner on the Beach and Sunday Morning Coffee

This was the most amazing summer dinner on the beach. While some things didn’t go as planned, it was still wonderful.

Thanks for joining me for Sunday morning coffee. Today I am sharing my weekly thoughts about entertaining, decor, crafts, and recipes, and Part Two of how I set up this magical summer dinner on the beach.

Season 3, Volume 29

Dinner on the Beach

The most important thing to me in the world is my family. I love when we get to spend time together and I love to spoil my boys in any way I can. Matt and Michael were here for the week at our beach house and I came up with the idea to create an oceanfront, “sand at your feet hopefully not waves at your knees late summer dinner”.

More about that last part later. Hmmm.

Summer Dinner on the Beach

I have created dinners on the beach five times previously. You can find the write-ups from some of these dinners on my blog Dinner on the Beach with Solar Lanterns and Fall Dinner on the Beach and A Magical Dinner on the Beach.

Each time I pounded tall poles into the sand which was not only hard to do but it just didn’t look great. I have been contemplating an idea that I saw at a vintage flea market so I teamed up with my handyman and this is what we came up with!

I made boxes to hold up a frame for an outdoor dining room!

Can I just say that this was so much easier to set up … even on the beach!

I love these wooden boxes with the removable 4×4’s and the 2×4’s that support the top. It does not take long to set this up and I did it all by myself.

The hardest part was carrying all of these pieces from our garage out to the beach. It only took twenty-one trips from our garage to the beach to set this up! (Fortunately, our home is very close to the beach!) I told the boys to go play golf so I could set this up as a surprise.

I might have regretted sending them to the golf course at about trip #18 but, I really wanted it to be a surprise. It was so cute when they pulled up in the driveway because they all hopped out of the car and ran to the beach to see what I had done.

How to Make the Outdoor Dining Room

These are the pieces that we built to create the outdoor dining room. I am not sure if I am going to stain them or paint them. But at this point, I am going to leave them like this! I really like the natural wood look.

How I Built the Outdoor Dining Room

Other than hauling everything out to the beach, this was a very easy installation.

I picked out the location feeling confident that the owner of this umbrella and chair would be leaving before 5:00 pm! I set the table up first and added the wooden boxes and 4×4’s next. As soon as I had two boxes in place, I added the 2×4’s across the top. I put a metal sleeve bracket on top of the vertical 4×4’s so the 2x4s slip in easily.

Next, I used a screwdriver and secured all of the 2×4’s across the top. I just wanted to make sure they were secure while we were dining!

Later on in the evening, I actually wished I hadn’t done that. But more on this later.

Once the frame was built and secure, I added the tablecloth and solar lights and ran into the house to cook dinner.

Yep, dinner.

Take out might have been a good idea at this point.

Solar Lighting on the Beach

You might remember a few years ago we redid all of the lighting in our backyard. We worked with an amazing company AQ Lighting which stands for Affordable Quality Lighting. They sell solar lights and I am so excited that I got to use these for the first time for my late summer dinner. They worked amazingly! Click here to see their solar cafe lights.

On this blog, I may sometimes use affiliate links, which means a small commission is earned if you purchase via the link. The price will be the same whether you use the affiliate link or go directly to the vendor’s website using a non-affiliate link.

Serving Dinner on the Beach

I did a bit of cooking during the day and I steamed the artichokes which I served with a homemade Garlic Lemon Aioli. I tried to keep the menu simple so I made baked potatoes (so easy!) and baked chicken with a yummy green salad.

Next, I added the flowers and lanterns just before dinner and when I went out to the beach I was shocked.

The fog had rolled in!

What the heck? The beach had been so gorgeous and I was so excited for the sunset. But in about fifteen minutes the fog came in and sadly I knew the only sunset colors we would see were my fresh flower centerpieces.

It was ok. The table and setting still looked awesome!

The thing about blogging and doing crazy dinners like this, things don’t always go as planned. As sad as I was about the fog, that was nothing compared to what happened next.

When we sat down for our late summer dinner I couldn’t help but notice how fast the tide was coming in. I didn’t say anything but the waves were only about five feet from my outdoor dining room.

By the time we opened the champagne and started dinner, they were within four feet.

Soon the incoming tide became the dinner conversation. At about halfway through dinner, we all hopped up and moved the entire “outdoor dining room” about three feet away from the beach. Fortunately, there were four of us so we could kind of move it (aka drag it) without any problems. We sat back down and enjoyed more of our dinner.

But we were all watching the waves. And we ate a little bit faster. We all finished dinner, well kind of, and the waves were knocking on the door again. Actually, they were almost at our feet!

We all jumped up and cleared the table as fast as we could. The boys took the frame apart and moved everything off the beach just as the water had completely covered where we just had dinner.

We didn’t get to enjoy a leisurely evening on the beach but it still was amazing.

And in hindsight, the clean-up went way faster than I had ever expected. (See, I can always find the bright side!)

Now I know, next time I need to check the tide schedules to make sure I don’t set up an entire dining area on the beach too close to the waves. Lesson learned!

Dave and I are in Canada and ready to start a Backroads biking trip at Jasper National Park. We will be in Banff tonight and I cannot wait.

Ok, I am a little nervous about the biking part but I think this will be a lot of fun. It’s a really nice trip and we have been to Banff and Lake Louise before. But we have never taken a biking trip! This is such a beautiful place.

I promise to share a lot on my Instagram stories and I will share our trip on the blog when I get back. Just know I cannot take photos while riding the bike. Too dangerous for sure! Hehe.

This was such a great week. I shared BBQ tips and the most amazing Smoked Brisket recipe. I also shared our Beach House bathrooms, why I love vintage quilts, and some amazing summer recipes. And the beach dinner party I created was sure a lot of fun.

My Favorite Items for Entertaining

I love to entertain and today I am sharing some of my all-time favorite items for entertaining. You can use these all year round.

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Next week I have lots of fun things planned on the blog. I am sharing how to use lemons this summer, how we built our wine cellar at the beach house, and one of my favorite easy summer pillows. I also have a DIY mirror, a fun paper clay DIY, and some new peach recipes.

• Why Do I Love Crafts? – S3/V28
• Our California Beach House – S3/V27
• Enjoying the Ventura Beach House – S3/V26
• Summer Decor Finds and Sunday Morning Coffee – S3/V25
• Looking Back at Provence and Sunday Morning Coffee – S3/V24
• Summer Birthday Week – S3/V23
• Welcome Summer – S3/V22
• Finishing the Exterior of the Beach House – S3/V21
• Happy Mother’s Day – S3/V20
• I Love New York – S3/V19
• A Spring Garden – S3/V18
• Happy National Picnic Day – S3/V17
• Welcome Graham – S3/V16
• Happy Easter – S3/V15
• Shopping Tips – S3/V14
• Happy Spring – S3/V13
• Girls Weekend Getaways – S3/V12
• Exciting News This Week – S3/V11
• Ventura Beach Favorites – S3/V10
• A Happy Family at the Beach House – S3/V9
• A Beach House Tour Deadline – S3/V8
• The Ventura Beach House – S3/V7
• A Busy Week at the Ventura Beach House – S3/V6
• Beach House Move-In Tomorrow – S3/V5
• Martha, “You are Wrong About My White Farmhouse Kitchen!” – S3/V4
• Valentines Day Decor – S3/V3
• Five Things to Organize Now – S3/V2
• Happy New Year 2023 – S3/V1

A Home to Share, by Leslie Saeta

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